Iowa City Schools

[MG3]

I don't have time to write a lot; however, there is a huge amount of financial information about all of the Iowa districts online at the state departments of education and management websites. It's available for anyone interested to look at. The state department of education is outstanding at answering questions about data. You can even use some of its site to compare school districts.

When examining the costs of running a new school, only some of the operational costs will increase over what is currently spent--e.g. a new principal or part time principal would be added. Iowa City has never had too little money; its been spending that's sometimes an issue. Even during what is perceived to be budget crunches, money has been spent on consultants and administrative staff.

Iowa City is a very wealthy school district compared to most school districts in the country. For example, it receives income tax surcharge money and has a good property tax base which contributes to the schools.

It's unlikely that most students would come back to the district but a new high school and/or elementary could stop students from enrolling out of the district and losing more $.

Somewhere on the ICCSD website is a report that shows how much land all of the schools have. There is much more at West than City.

[Betsy84]

MG...sure I can look at the data. The way I look at it though is that the people who are advocating for the third high school sooner than later are going to have to prove their case(financial and otherwise) to the community, not the other way around.

The figures that were tossed around a few years ago for operating costs(non teacher expenditures) put those figures at $2 million. This figure assumes that no new teachers would be hired.

[Betsy84]

I won't dispute that West has more land than City.

City still has room though.

[Betsy84]

http://home.mchsi.com/thoenys/ConsensusvsConflict.pdf

Just saw this report, about finding a way to open a new high school. I have to say while there while there are some distractions in the report, it doesn't really sound like people are wanting to compromise much.

Talking about Wickham specific needs won't get the whole community on board, and there is no real talk about cost.

[Betsy84]

One other comment, in reading the newest petition, is that some of the commenters think a new high school will reduce class sizes.

That isn't necessarily true, especially if some of the current West and City teachers are funneled to the new high school.